This Body is Bullshit

The Ones Who Failed Me

I want to talk about the doctors who let me down. I’ve been carrying this anger for a long time — almost three years — and I’m only just starting to loosen my grip on it. Not because I’ve forgiven anyone. Just because rage is exhausting and I’m already tired.

But I need to say it out loud first.

Dr. Kim was my reconstructive plastic surgeon. In the beginning he was fine — competent, professional, the whole thing. But the minute complications started, he vanished. My body was rejecting the expanders, I was recovering from sepsis, everything was going sideways — and he couldn’t handle it. Just gone. Unavailable. Too vain to deal with a messy case. If you ever looked at his social media, it tells you everything — only posts patients who look like supermodels. I was a problem to be managed, and he chose not to manage it.

He also dismissed the lump. That part I can’t let go of.

Dr. Gradishar — my oncologist at the time — dismissed it too. I found something. It looked like a pimple, or a mosquito bite. They told me it was a cyst, and honestly, I believed them — because why wouldn’t I? They’re the doctors. Gradishar sent me for a mammogram and an ultrasound. Results were inconclusive.

And that’s where they stopped.

No biopsy. No follow-up. No “let’s keep an eye on this.” Just — inconclusive, moving on. As if I hadn’t already had cancer once. As if a lump on a breast cancer patient wasn’t worth pursuing.

It was cancer. Again.

I had been walking around with undiagnosed, untreated cancer in my body for two years. Two years. Do you understand what that means? It means those cells had time to move. It means I now live with the very real likelihood that my cancer will come back — somewhere, sometime, ten years from now, twenty, maybe sooner — and part of that is because nobody caught it when they should have. I wasn’t even offered radiation the first time around. Should I have been? I still don’t know. Nobody has given me a straight answer on that.

I spoke to an attorney. I wanted to hold them accountable. I wanted someone to look at what happened and say yes, this was negligence, yes, you deserve more than just being alive.

They told me I don’t have a case. Because I eventually got diagnosed. Because I’m still here.

I sat with that for a long time. I’m still sitting with it. The system basically said — you survived, so what’s the problem? The problem is that survival shouldn’t be the bar. The problem is that two years of cancer in my body has consequences I’ll be living with for the rest of my life. The problem is that if they did this to me, they’ve done it to someone else.

And then there’s Dr. Fine.

When I was at my lowest — physically wrecked, emotionally done, running out of trust — he showed up. He took one look at that lump and knew. Didn’t hesitate. Didn’t minimize. Didn’t make me feel crazy for pointing at my own body and saying something is wrong. He was right, and he acted on it, and I genuinely believe he saved my life.

Dr. Hansen, who did my original mastectomy, was exceptional. Dr. Undevia, my current oncologist, is sharp and thorough and actually follows protocol. These people did their jobs. They took me seriously. They treated me like someone worth saving.

The others? They know what they did. Or worse — they don’t.

I’m still angry. I’ll probably always be a little angry. But I’m done letting it eat me alive.

Almost.